I had hoped to call my blog "The Dog's Breakfast," but that name was long since taken. But in that spirit "The Breakfast" offers a little of this and a little of that, not all of it pretty, some of it poorly chewed. These are papers, posts, stories, correspondence, musings, and links to ideas that interest or amuse me.

Not everyone believes that Jesus is God, the Logos, a member of The Holy Trinity,the Christ, or even a prophet of Allah. However, many of us non-believers still believe there was a man in history around whom ancient experiences, stories, legends, myths, and dogma have accreted to form Christianity. There are also some who think no such man ever existed - these are the "mythicists."

Ehrman has been chided for deriding the credentials - or lack of credentials - of those who profess the mythicist perspective. Ehrman spares no words conveying the disregard academics extend to the mere opinions of those outside the field. Still, in doing so he reduces the number of nominally credible mythicists to three or so. Then, while ruthlessly dismembering the mythicist literature, he methodically assembles a modest historical case for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, an Jewish apocalypticpreacher from the Galilee who was put to death by the Romans in Jerusalem on or about 30 CE, around whom a religious movement started...